Ok, so we missed Al's one-year update in all the Christmas craziness. Craziness that she herself failed to grasp, though she did enjoy trying to break all the ornaments on the tree, and playing with all that lovely wrapping paper. She got a bunch of fantastic presents for Christmas and her birthday, only a few of which are designed to make her parents go slowly insane with electronic music (just kidding, those are our favorites because she dances to them- hilarious!) She ate half of her chocolate cake on her birthday and smeared the other half all over her face, meeting her first birthday obligations. She saw her uncles Jason and Michael in December and January, respectively, and didn't seem completely terrified of them.
In other news: 1. she's walking. She took her first steps in December, and after running laps around the house chasing Matthew's cat for 2 weeks she has really got it down. She demonstrated this past weekend that she can't navigate downhill yet and has the bruise on her cheek to prove it- fortunately the neighbors weren't watching when I negligently left her standing on the driveway for an entire 3 seconds. That's all it takes man- she can bite it in no time at all (she can also make it from the living room to the always-fascinating toilet bowl in about 1.3 seconds).
2. She's talking. While chasing poor Emmett, she learned her first real word ("mama" "dada" and "hi" could conceivably be random syllables). You haven't seen funny u
ntil you've seen a 2-foot tall mop of hair in footie pajamas staggering across the room after the "kitty kitty kitty kitty" while the poor thing runs for its life. She almost got him a couple of times. Almost. She can also say "good" (usually in relation to food) and "bye bye," complete with the wave. She recognizes and names photos of babies and constantly demands "key" (her favorite toy). Balloon ("boon") sounds suspiciously like spoon ("poon"). Before she started talking she started understanding words and pointing to objects we name like light, clock, eye, hair, flower (or making the sign for milk), but now that she's actually mimicking sounds we're in a bit of a panic (ok, I'M in a bit of a panic) because it means we have to clean up our language. I just know I'm going to be that lady in the grocery store whose kid proudly yells out some four-letter word and looks around for approval. On a related note, Erik and I have decided that Al may very well grow up thinking her name is Dude- we've noticed we call her that frequently. As in "Dude, why are you throwing that spaghetti on the floor?" or "Dude, that is one stinky diaper." Our second child will think his name is What the Hell.
As for general personality traits, she is still a fairly serious kid but she laughs more often now- she finds peekaboo and chase games around the couch particularly hilarious. She is very interested in putting objects inside of other objects, and will struggle mightily to put a displaced pen cap back on the pen. She dances to all sorts of inappropriate tunes- the NPR theme music, for example- as well as the more typical kiddie music. She goes to bed without too much fuss and sleeps through the night, which makes us more willing to tolerate her recent tendency to get upset when we take things away from her. Especially shiny things, like an 8" chef's knife or the finger - I mean cheese - grater. She eats everything we eat (well, what she gets in her mouth and not on the tarp we have spread under her high chair) and hasn't had any further Exorcist episodes in response to eggs. So it's a little surprising she fell off her growth curve at her one-year visit- she's merely average for height now. I guess all that cat-chasing uses up a lot of calories. That's it for now, check out the Picasa link for recent photos
